eBay Trading API
Call Reference Version 643

A leaf category to retrieve recommended Item Specifics for. (This call returns no results for a parent category.) To determine which leaf categories support listing with custom Item Specifics, use GetCategoryFeatures and GetCategories.

Note: This call may return recommendations for categories that don't support listing with custom Item Specifics. That is, the presence of recommendations for a category does not necessarily mean that AddItem supports custom Item Specifics for that category and site.

Alternatively, you can use the CategorySpecific to specify the category. (If you plan to only use one or the other in your application, you should use CategorySpecific, as it may offer more options in the future.)

You can specify multiple leaf categories (but more categories can result in longer response times). If you specify the same ID twice, we use the first instance. Required if CategorySpecificsFileInfo is not provided.

Depending on how many recommendations are found, your request may time out if you specify too many category IDs. (Typically, you can download recommendations for about 275 categories at a time.)

Applicable with request version 609 and higher. (This does not retrieve data at all if your request version is lower than 609.) Contains a leaf category for which you want recommended Item Specifics, and (optionally) names and values to help you refine the recommendations. You can specify multiple categories (but more categories can result in longer response times). If you specify the same category twice, we use the first instance.

Depending on how many recommendations are found, your request may time out if you specify too many categories. (Typically, you can download recommendations for about 275 categories at a time.)

CategoryID and CategorySpecific.CategoryID can be used in the request. (If you plan to only use one or the other in your application, you should use CategorySpecific, as it may offer more options in the future.)

If true, the response includes FileReferenceID and TaskReferenceID. Use these IDs as inputs to the downloadFile call in the eBay File Transfer API. That API lets you retrieve a single (bulk) GetCategorySpecifics response with all the Item Specifics recommendations available for the requested site ID. (The downloadFile call downloads a .zip file as an attachment.)

Either CategorySpecificsFileInfo or a CategoryID is required (or you can specify both).

Note: You can use the File Transfer API without using or learning about the Bulk Data Exchange API or other Large Merchant Services APIs.

If true, the Relationship node is not returned for any recommendations. Relationship recommendations tell you whether an Item Specific value has a logical dependency another Item Specific.

For example, in a clothing category, Size Type could be recommended as a parent of Size, because Size=Small would mean something different to buyers depending on whether Size Type=Petite or Size Type=Plus.

In general, it is a good idea to retrieve and use relationship recommendations, as this data can help buyers find the items they want more easily.

If true, returns eBay's level of confidence in the popularity of each name and value. Some sellers may find this useful when choosing whether to use eBay's recommendation or their own name or value.

Causes the recommendation engine to check whether the list of popular Item Specifics for each specified category has changed since this date and time. If specified, this call returns no Item Specifics; it only returns whether the data has changed for any of the requested categories.

Typically, you pass in the Timestamp that was returned the last time you refreshed the list of names and values for the same categories. If the Updated flag returns true for any categories in the response, call GetCategorySpecifics again for those categories to get the latest names and values. (As downloading all the data may affect your application's performance, it may help to only download Item Specifics for a category if they have changed since you last checked.)

Maximum number of Item Specifics to return per category (where each Item Specific is identified by a unique name within the category). Use this to retrieve fewer results per category. For example, if you only want up to 2 per category (the top 2 most popular names), specify 2.

Maximum number of values to retrieve per Item Specific. Use this to retrieve fewer values per name. For example, if you only want the most popular value, specify 1.

The name of one Item Specific name to find values for. Use this if you want to find out whether a name that the seller provided has recommended values. If you specify multiple leaf categories in the request, the recommendation engine returns all matching names and values it finds for each of those categories. At the time of this writing, this value is case-sensitive. (Wildcards are not supported.)

Name and CategorySpecific.ItemSpecific can be used in the request. (If you plan to only use one or the other in your application, you should use ItemSpecific, as it may offer more options in the future.)